10 Games
Reviews Your Computer Issue 7 Writer: Eric Deeson Greye's Gamestape 1 offers the Orwin cassette good competition. It costs £2.95 but contains only 10 programs which on the whole are not so good as the Orwin games. Bumper, Lander, Simon, Mastermind, Asteroids, Hangman — guillotine to be precise. There is also a brilliant etch-a-sketch with eight directions and Copy, and an attractive pattern-generator. ZX Computing Issue 2 Writer: Phil Garratt Of the ten 1K ZX81 games on this tape, only three - SIMON, CODE and CRASH LANDING - are without graphics. SIMON is the ZX version of the "repeat the bleeps and flashing lights" toy which was the computer plaything before pocket Space Invaders invaded. A sequence of names of colours is flashed up, which then has to be repeated. If you get it right, the sequence grows, and is also displayed for a shorter time. This is a well-programmed version of the game. CODE is a limited version of Mastermind (or 'Cows and Bulls' to pre-computer veterans) where the player has to guess a four-digit number. They've done well to fit it into 1K, and I found it quite hard since my usual strategy doesn't apply when duplicated digits are now allowed. CRASH LANDING is a standard lunar lander program, and I was disappointed to find that, having crashed, I wasn't told what size crater I had made! Of the graphics games, KLINGONS and ASTEROIDS are pretty much the same program: You move your ship left or right, and the opposition scroll steadily up towards you. The difference (!) is that you have to hit the Klingons, but miss the Asteroids. UFO has another twist. The flying saucers stay put, while your laser base speeds automatically from left to right, and you have to judge the correct moment to fire a missile. Similarly with BOMBER. You have to decide when to release the payload to hit the dam, and your bombing runs gets shorter as your aim improves. ARTIST is a standard plotting program, allowing you to draw with pixels directed by the cursor controls. A COPY statement is built in, so it is possible to copy the screen onto the printer without stopping the program. KALEIDOSCOPE produces a random symmetrical pattern with pixels winking on and off. Hypnotic stuff. The last program on the tape is GUILLOTINE, which is a two-player hangman game with a guillotine instead of gallows. You can guess what happens if the player loses. Thank goodness it is not in colour, I was very impressed with the amount which had been packed into 1K on this one. Clear and simple instructions are given for each game, and I had no problems with loading. I found no errors in any of the programs, and they included 'data validation' routines where possible. For example, in ARTIST you couldn't plot off the screen, and similarly you couldn't go off the edge in KLINGONS and ASTEROIDS. I would hope that most new ZX81 owners would soon be writing their own Lunar Lander and Mastermind games, but if they are in a hurry to see what their machine is capable of, then this tape provides ten good examples. Category:ZX81 Games Category:J.K. Greye Software Category:Your Computer Reviews Category:ZX Computing Reviews